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Kazamara
The parliamentary nobility of this Gnomish land rules over a nation of extravagant people who are constantly breaking boundaries--both in the sphere of the mind, and in that which tends to remain behind closed doors. __TOC__ Quick Facts * National Language: Galasa da Ñoma (Gnomish) * Government: Parliamentary Nobility * Current Leader: ? * Land (climate): Tropical (tropical, moist) * Demographics: ** 70% Gnomes ** 15% Dwarves ** 10% Sun Elves ** 5% Elves and Half-Elves ** 1% Other Names Gnomes have three names, and anyone who told you they have four is a filthy liar. Their first name is, of course, given to them at birth by their parents, and is the name they go by most often. They are frequently named after beloved and/or deceased family members, or historical or mythical figures their parents hope they will emulate. Sometimes they are just given a pleasant series of sounds, however. Their second name they give to themselves any time after their thirteenth birthday (children will use their mother’s maiden name until then,) and is somehow descriptive of them, either by personality, profession, or some great deed they have done. These names are not mere nicknames, they are official and will be found on documentation. They are important because they are descriptive, and can help form a stranger’s opinion of you. For this reason they are usually translated when traveling, and occasionally an adult will change his second name later in life. Their last name is the name of their father’s House, and is shared with the rest of their family. Although, historically speaking, House names originated from the same place as second names, they are not generally translated. All these names tend towards longness, at least three or four syllables, and are rarely, if ever, shortened, nor left out when formally introducing oneself. Government A Parliament of Noble Lords votes on governance. Nobility is hereditary, but there is a system by which influential or commendable commonfolk can be raised to nobility, or dishonorable nobles can be stripped of their titles either as individuals or as an entire House. This has been happening more and more frequently lately, as the great thinkers and the influential wealthy are fighting to earn their place in government. (There was a failed revolution two generations back, but its toll was so great that it frightened Parliament into listening more to the people.) Each Noble House is granted one seat in Parliament, usually sending the head of the household. As such, women usually only attend Parliament when their husbands die and their sons are not yet of age (thirteen, in this case.) There is a lot of complex political intrigue that goes on at court, and the more cynical Gnomes grumble about how long it takes to get anything done. There is also growing dissatisfaction among those VIPs who have yet to be granted Noble status. Law and Crime Criminals are tried before a judge who has studied the law at a university. Lawyers debate a plaintiff’s guilt in public hearings before the judge makes his verdict. Petty crimes earn you a fine, violent crimes get you locked up, and the most heinous crimes get you executed by Necrotic Chair (a mechanical chair that sends a pulse of necrotic energy into your skull.) All the usual stuff is illegal: no murder, no theft, no rape, no kidnapping, no defacing public property, no bribery or other obstruction of justice, etc. Organized crime has been on the rise in the bigger cities, but sadly, law enforcement hasn’t been able to root that out. The taxes are killer. Lexandaria (The Capital) A clockwork metropolis, Lexandaria is upheld as the epitome of what a Gnomish city should be. Standing on the edge of the sea, this bustling port town boasts Tirisea’s tallest buildings, monumental marble towers held aloft by columns and archways. Towering above them all are a series of spires topped with glowing blue crystals, gathering ambient magical energy to power the city’s technology. Magitech Nowhere is the presence of magitech more keenly felt than Lexandaria, where every aspect of life is made more convenient by wonders of polished brass. The stone-paved streets are patrolled by clockwork guards to keep the peace, and larger, 8-ft. clockwork soldiers guard the city limits. Citizens commute on horseless carriages along streets lit by sunstone lampposts. The upper class fill their homes with running water, combustion stoves, cryonic iceboxes, and flying wind-up fairies for their children. Government officials send important messages across town with sending stones and magic mirrors. If, for some reason, you wanted to travel out of town, there are three options. The most obvious is the Tele-port, a building containing a number of large summoning gates for sending groups of travelers to the major cities of the world. It also acts as a beacon for other forms of long-range teleportation—no sneaking past customs! If you can’t afford the tele-port, or have too much baggage to carry with you, you can take the tallships that brought the city such economic prosperity, now outfitted with propellers and flapping fins in place of sails, and steel hulls. You can also take the winged airships that are more common here than anywhere else in Tirisea. The trains that appear farther inland in Kazamara are unnecessary here (and are growing obsolete anyway.) Unfortunately, there is a huge disparity between the upper and lower class that those in power like to ignore, and a seedy underworld of organized crime. It sucks moving on. The fashions are bolder, the parties are wilder, the streets are louder, the people are busier, the politics are shadier! It’s the Gnomiest of Gnome cities. Landmarks House of Parliament Was initially a palace for a powerful Lord when it was built 200 years ago. A large, square building, located in the center of the city. This is where the Nobles meet, once a week and for any emergency meetings called, to discuss, debate, then vote upon, issues of governance. There are six towers containing residential suites for them, or visiting dignitaries, to stay in if they don’t have a place in town, and many meet up even when parliament is not in session to discuss matters in smaller groups. Also to drink and smoke and stuff. Citizens are allowed to sit in the balconies surrounding the Parliament floor to see the process in action, but silence is demanded so the noblemen can do their jobs. Temple of Valadik Built by the last great prophet, Valadik, some 500 years ago. The temple proper fits 5,000, and is 100 ft. tall in total (50 ft. of white marble wall with large glass windows, 50 feet of gold-plated dome.) Its firepit is huge: 10 ft. square (a metal footbridge is erected for couples to walk across during weddings.) Connected is a 300 ft. tower (not huge by Lexandaria’s modern standards, but unheard of when it was built) guarded by the Faith Militant, containing the High Priest’s throne room and housing, as well as libraries of scripture and holy texts, storage for sacred relics, and an observatory at the top, inside another golden dome. The temple sits on a cliff overlooking the sea. 'Great Genzagin A 1,000-ft. tall clock tower, the tallest building in the world, located in the center of the city for all to see. Genzagin is a common given name, and granted to the tower affectionately by the people. ''Lexandaria University, Arcane University, and Science Institutes Three major universities (could you tell?) Lexandaria University is the oldest, and was founded by the Faith. Its architecture is beautifully ornate, but it is small by modern standards. It focuses most on philosophy. Arcane university is, of course, a university of magic and spellcraft, and strange lights can be seen coming from within at all hours. The Science Institutes are the newest and most modern, and tallest. They focus on both the natural sciences and on technology. There is a lot of overlap between the three, however; they like their students well-rounded. The capital also boasts many' libraries, clubs for performing, the port, the air-port, the tele-port, the market district, and the slums. Religion 'Traditionally, Gnomes followed the Faith of Takavok. Takavok is the warrior-god who fought back the night at the dawn of creation with the legion of stars—his children and his army—thus creating the world. The sun is his golden palace, where the righteous go when they die, safe from the cold and dark where the wicked are banished to. Also his wife is the Izizi the Moon Queen, keeping us safe while he rests. Her power waxes and wanes because there is as much evil in the world as good. There are temples in every city in Kazamara, where regular sermons are held by priests in white robes, and a firepit is lit for sacraments in place of an altar. The great domed temple of the Prophet Valadik stands in Lexandaria, presided over by the High Priest of Takavok. Underneath each city, or in hillsides nearby, are built catacombs to entomb the dead amongst their ancestors. The demands of the faith are: * Venerate Takavok. * Attend services at least on Holy days and each New Moon (when Izizi is weakest). * Actively fight against evil. * Do good deeds to cancel out bad ones (this one has been taken advantage of, “sure I killed a man, but I went to the soup kitchen the next day!”). * Alternately, burn your impurities away (pretty much only the Faith Militant does this anymore). * Pay annual tithes to the Faith. Sadly for the Faith, since enlightenment ways of thinking have become the culture, the Faith has found itself increasingly irrelevant. Those philosophers who have not gone completely secular have imported some beliefs from oversees, creating their own personal theologies, much to the chagrin of traditionalists. Progressives find the principles of the Collective particularly attractive, though they hesitate to join their more simplistic lifestyle. ''Culture Attitudes of the General Populace Gnomes love nothing more than science and learning and philosophy, and consider an inquisitive mind of the utmost virtue. However, they are also really self-involved; they care about the things that interest them, and if you're boring, they won’t bother with you. They’re also very exclusionary. They like to learn about other cultures as a matter of curiosity, but they have a certain way they like things done, and they don’t want other races mucking them up with their superstitions and their quaint customs and their general not-gnomishness Gnomes’ second great love is Having a Good Time. Everything about them is extravagant. Their food is savory and plentiful, their wine is sweet and strong, their music deliberately challenging to keep up with, their fashions audacious. Their parties are legendary, and generally involve opiates and ballroom dancing. You’d never be invited. They say the rich and powerful occasionally hold secret orgies, but you’d never be invited to those, either. For propriety’s sake, of course, the thing to do is to understate the good time you’re having. You know how aristocrats can blow a small country’s budget on a single night out but act like it’s perfectly blasé? It’s kind of like that. Hedonistic Gnomes may be, but they aren’t exactly playful. Gnomes love the arts, in particular music, poetry, and storytelling. However they are viewed as recreational, and no one makes a living off of them. Instead every child is expected to learn at least one art form, and socialites takes turns using their respective talents to entertain each other at gatherings. Being so metropolitan, Gnomes’ lives are very busy, but very methodical. They rush to work in the morning, manage a dozen different tasks at once, go out for drinks with the co-workers afterwards, go home to dinner with the family, rush out with the wife for a night on the town with the other socialites, then go back home and sleep like the dead. Fashion Gnomish fashion is extravagant and expressive. Men wear longcoats over tunics in bold colors, trimmed with geometric patterns. Women wear draping, multi-layered dresses that look similar, but are covered in metallic ornamentation. All outfits are considered incomplete without headwear (it wouldn’t exactly be scandalous to go without any, just unusual) usually some form of cap for men, and bandana for women. All men keep neat facial hair in a variety of styles (beards, chinstraps, handlebar mustaches, mutton chops, “friendly” mutton chops, etc.) but usually keep their hair short. Women keep their hair long, and do it up in complex braids and buns. Both men and women cover themselves in bracelets, rings, and necklaces of precious metals if they can afford it, and pierce their large ears as many times as they can. Rich Gnomes practically jingle when they walk. Magic' Where other races view magic with some degree of reverence or superstition, the Gnomes simply view it as another natural science to be studied and harnessed, and integrated it into their technology. As such, magitech can be found everywhere, and the widespread prominence of technology that takes care of base needs left a culture singularly obsessed with intellectual pursuits (and they were a little bit of that already, hence their being able to create all their magitech to begin with.) It also turned them kind of hedonistic. '''Family, Love and Sex '''Family is super important to Gnomes. Parents are revered, siblings are loved, and extended relatives seldom stray far and see each other often. Of course, sociologists would argue that this has its roots more in the complex politics of Noble family dynamics than in sentimentality, but no one would ever admit that. Likewise, the high-classier the family, the more likely a marriage is to be motivated in some part by socio-politico-economic alliance, but lower class citizens marry more freely for love. Likewisely likewise, the lower class are really free with sex, unashamedly starting in their teens, while the upper class jealously guard their women’s virginity, and make varying degrees of nudge-nudge-wink-winky claims that the men totally waited until marriage too you guys. Prostitution is perfectly legal, and some pleasure houses are very classy—there has yet to be built a machine that can put them out of business. Homosexuality is tolerated, but is generally regarded as a sort of juvenile experimentation—great for helping you to discover how sexuality works, but best to be put away once you reach adulthood and it’s time to settle down and start a family. Courtship generally consists of increasingly expensive gift-giving and open flirting. If a marriage is desired, the man asks the blessing of the woman’s father (or mother or of-age brother, if no father is available) before properly proposing to the woman. The wedding ceremony is surprisingly somber. The bride and groom each wear solid white clothes and each throw an old heirloom into the local Temple’s firepit, to signify their leaving their old families. They then hold hands as they walk over (well, around, really) the firepit, to signify their crossing over into a new family together. Then the priest blesses their union and rings a bell, and voilà! The reception, of course, is another story entirely. The new couple changes into their most blinding colorful and ornamented outfits, often burning the wedding garments, and a super-double-plus party with the family and the extended family and the extended extended family rages all through the night. There are many bawdy jokes made at the bride and groom’s expense. Also lots of expensive, but rarely practical, gifts. When the couple has children (and traditionally they will have quite a few, although this is less true now that gnomish alchemists have developed such kick-ass contraceptives) they are raised with a proper education first and foremost in the parents’ minds (also love, but whatever.) There are public schoolhouses for children, and wealthier families hire private tutors as well. Most teenagers go away to college where they get into largely gender-segregated mischief, and if they can afford it they go on to specialized study at a University. Common studies are mathematics, science, medicine, architecture, spellcraft, and philosophy. Children are taught at least one form of art as well, be it music, singing, dancing, painting, sculpture, poetry, or some other form of performance. Non-Residents Gnomes are pretty seclusionary (that’s not a word) and they don’t go out of their way to encourage immigration or even tourism, for the most part. They are always open to those traveling for business purposes, however. Being a port city, Lexandaria is the most mixed. Dwarves have a good enough relationship with the Gnomes, and do enough back-and-forth trade that you can always find some of them about, they aren’t a strange sight, and are the least “othered” by Gnomish society. The Sun Elf bards of Mura’kesz, who are considered to be traveling on business as a matter of course, are also numerous, and always in high demand in society. They are considered exotic beauties, always foreigners, but welcome ones. The Elves of Dyffryn Caidris are on the seclusionary side themselves (still not a word) so they aren’t as numerous, but sometimes you’ll run into one teaching at university, or privately for some wealthy family. Coral Islanders are also common, but lack the racial unity to be identifiable on sight (they make up the one percent other, and a percentage or two from each race) Other towns, farther inland, have foreigners in similar ratios to one another, but their Gnomish population is 80 or even 90% Category:Nations